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Artemis II is not safe to fly

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Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#571

Post by LorenPechtel »

mikkupikku wrote: post #237
GMoromisato wrote: post #77

This is a more balanced take, in my opinion: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasa-chief-reviews-ori... Camarda is an outlier. The engineers at NASA believe it is safe. The astronauts believe it is safe. Former astronaut Danny Olivas was initially skeptical of the heat shield but came around. And note that the OP believes it is likely (maybe very likely) that the heat shield will work fine. It's hard for me to r…

> In both Challenger and Columbia, nobody bothered to analyze the problem because they didn't think there was a problem. False on both counts. Both the SRB joint design issue and the foam shedding were known, researched and dismissed very early in the shuttle program. They suspected it after STS-1 and confirmed it within a few flights.

No. They were noted, the fact that they didn't destroy the vehicle was taken as evidence they wouldn't destroy the vehicle. Neither received any real scrutiny.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#572

Post by LorenPechtel »

aeternum wrote: post #535
Analemma_ wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could downvote this comment more than once. It's incredibly ghoulish to use the perfectly-sensible argument that modern culture is too risk-averse to handwave away known critical safety problems . Those two things are completely orthogonal. Yes, astronauts should be willing to accept that there are "unknown unknowns" and that they will be facing some amount of unquantifiable risk, and they should be celebrat…

>Camarda is an outlier. The engineers at NASA believe it is safe. The astronauts believe it is safe. Former astronaut Danny Olivas was initially skeptical of the heat shield but came around. How do you explain so many people believing it is safe? The problem is risks are far too easy to brainstorm, anyone can come up with endless risks that it takes endless time to mitigate. If I were the manager for challenger, I wo…

No. That famous demonstration only touched on the real failure mode--the rings were covering up other failure and in the cold could not do so.

The real test was creating a full-scale test of ignition, an engine containing mostly inert filler (to occupy the fuel volume) and just enough fuel to reach stable burning.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#573

Post by shiroiuma »

vsgherzi wrote: post #44

Definitely concerned to hear but I’m hopeful that the core of nasa is intact. They’re some of the kindest and smartest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. They don’t joke around with lives on the line. I hope the best for everyone involved. I’ll be watching the launch of Artemis 2 and 3 with excitement and hope.

>They don’t joke around with lives on the line.

They don't? They sure seemed to back when they ignored the engineers and launched Challenger, and again with Columbia. And those were times when the country had competent political leadership instead of a complete clown-show.

I have very, very little faith in NASA at this point after seeing how much the administration has wrecked other federal agencies like the CDC and NHS. There's no way I'd fly on that thing.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#574

Post by randomNumber7 »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #560
randomNumber7 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprising for the management. If you are a spoiled brat who always got what it wanted if you just asked/cried you don't expect reality to come and hit you.

Actually, not surprising. The engineering was clear: don't fly. But given political realities had they said that they probably would have lost the contract to build the rockets--and that was a big part of their business. They made the human choice: chose the option with a chance of success vs the option that was a certain failure.

They had already failed earlier and are just too selfish to accept it. This is not human, its a disgusting subset of the species.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#575

Post by randomNumber7 »

bell-cot wrote: post #494
randomNumber7 wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't NASA run by the government? Why not pay people to do their job correctly?

Is "Why not pay people to do their jobs correctly?" a way of voicing frustration with massive gov't incompetence? Or a way of saying that organizational incompetence is top-down?

Both, but its also a genuine question. If you look at the Boeing 737 max for example they did it clearly with the idea of profit. I can understand the reasoning (it is still criminal and people should have gone to jail imo).

Why you would pay something like that with tax money is beyond my understanding.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#577

Post by dataflow »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #240
dataflow wrote: post #34

What I don't get is why the heck are the astronauts willing to risk their lives on something they must know by now is so dangerous? Is it really better to risk death than to risk getting fired?

> why are the astronauts willing to risk their lives There are a lot of funerals in chapter 1 of Tom Wolfe's book, "The Right Stuff". I suggest that some choice of profession come with a higher life-risk tolerance than others. "Accountants willing to risk their lives for the job" would be news. Firefighters, less so. Test pilots or astronauts, not much at all.

You're completely ignoring the nature of the risk. It's one thing to accept a risk of death because it's intrinsic to a noble job. It's a whole other thing to accept a totally avoidable risk that's only introduced due to management's self-interests getting in the way.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#578

Post by tuananh »

idlewords wrote: post #300
tuananh wrote: post #125

> Notice: Only variables should be passed by reference in /Users/maciej/Code/iw/site/month.php on line 8 if author is reading this, you should fix this maybe.

I'm sorry it bugs you!

oh it's nothing. it just that there maybe some security issues.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#579

Post by retroformat »

gtowey wrote: post #511
pstuart wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simplistic answer would be to ensure that incentives are aligned with safety and success. Then that leads to the evergreen problem of Goodhart’s Law (when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure). Even if it can't ever be truly fixed, at least recognizing the issues and shining daylight on decisions for some form of accountability should be a base-level approach.

Easy, put the manager on the actual mission.

Doesn't work. Remember the Titanic? Remember the British airship R101 (the "government" ship)? Both had their designers and higher ups perish in the subsequent maiden voyage disasters, right along with many/most of the innocent passengers.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#580

Post by AIorNot »

joak wrote: post #186
pie_flavor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about former NASA engineer Charles Camarda? Linked from the article: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz...

I agree, this report from astronaut Camarda should really alarm NASA.

Not really - read the Berger article for more details above -Camarda is older, in his 70s and his attitude overall (based on the reports) reads more like an ego bruise than serious reflection on the engineering problem

Obviously concerns should be vetted by the engineering teams involved but it appears they have been addressed to meet the needs of the mission

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